A Story for McCall

McCall Public Library, McCall, Idaho
2024
Hand-carved low-relief cork panels, etched glass
26' x 13' (eight carved panels, seven etched glass panels)
Commissioned by the City of McCall

Made for the renovation of McCall's public library, A Story for McCall is a series of eight hand-carved and painted low-relief panels set into recesses built for them in the back wall of the central staircase. The work reads as part of the building rather than something hung on it. Across the stair, etched glass panels on the open stairwell enclosure pick up small moments from the larger carvings, so the imagery comes back to visitors as they climb.

The content came from the people who use the library. In information-gathering sessions held in the library itself, residents asked to see the wildlife that surrounds their town, the history of its forestry industry, and imagery representing the Nez Perce members of their community.

A partnership with the Heritage Program Manager of the U.S. Forest Service connected the project with Nimiipuu (Nez Perce) artists and linguists, whose language, ideas, and imagery are part of the finished work. Their contributions are presented as living and present, not as artifacts of the past. That distinction mattered here. The library and the town sit beside Payette Lake, on land with a long history and a continuing future in the culture of the region's Indigenous peoples.